{"id":495871,"date":"2026-01-06T06:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T06:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/495871\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T06:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T06:26:09","slug":"former-school-bus-aide-pleads-guilty-to-assaulting-3-autistic-students-in-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/495871\/","title":{"rendered":"Former school bus aide pleads guilty to assaulting 3 autistic students in Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">DENVER &#8212; A former school bus aide pleaded guilty Monday to assaulting three nonverbal students with autism who were unable to report the abuse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Kiarra Jones, 30, entered guilty pleas to 12 charges under a plea agreement as she was about to go on trial in suburban Denver <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/autistic-boy-bus-abuse-aide-f20f6454e0de0d2698c873ee81ede735\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">for abuse that was revealed in 2024<\/a> by bus surveillance video, according to prosecutors and court documents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Jones is represented by lawyers from the public defender\u2019s office, which does not comment to the media on its cases.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The abuse was discovered after Jessica Vestal, the mother of one of the nonverbal students, asked school officials to review the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/rmlawyers.com\/littleton-public-schools-special-education-student-abuse-cases\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">surveillance video<\/a> to try to explain a series of injuries her son, then 10, suffered after going to school early last year, including bruises all over his body and a black eye. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Jessica and her husband, Devon Vestal, said they are haunted by whether their son understands why it happened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cWe are committed to making sure that he understands how deeply he is loved,\u201d they said in statement released by the law firm representing them and the two other families, Rathod Mohamedbhai. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">Jones pleaded guilty to 10 felony counts of third-degree assault of an at-risk child and two misdemeanor counts of child abuse, the office of 18th Judicial District Attorney Amy Padden said. She faces up to 15 years in prison for the felony counts at sentencing set for March 18. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER &#8212; A former school bus aide pleaded guilty Monday to assaulting three nonverbal students with autism who&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":495872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[223075,347,10762,824,4219,407,57,210,4228,50,3060,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-495871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-223075","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-assault","12":"tag-autism","13":"tag-crime","14":"tag-education","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-health","17":"tag-indictments","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-schools","20":"tag-u-s-news","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115846735353802502","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}